It doesn't take a genius to see that dogs are huge right now. Without question, the runaway star of The Artist was 10-year-old jack russell Uggie, while Pudsey – the canine winner of this year's Britain's Got Talent – is rumoured to be in talks with Disney about appearing in a film of his own. If you're after a fast buck, and have always yearned to live out your Hollywood dreams vicariously through an animal that drinks out of the toilet, you could do a lot worse than get a dog.

And if it happens look like Benji, all the better. You remember Benji. He was the Pepsi to Lassie's Coca-Cola – a small mixed-breed mutt with a lovable demeanour and an inexplicable propensity for helping strangers. His film career has been long and varied, beginning in 1974 with Benji (Benji rescues some kidnapped children) and including For the Love of Benji (Benji is chased through Greece by some spies), Oh! Heavenly Dog (Chevy Chase is reincarnated as Benji), and Benji: Off the Leash! (essentially Herbie: Fully Loaded, but with a dog instead of a winking car). The bad news is that all the previous Benjis are dead. The good news is that you might already own the new Benji.

Producer Brandon Camp has set up a Facebook page to cast a replacement Benji. It is not known what form the film will take – whether it will be a traditional Benji Saves People movie, or the long-awaited follow-up to the shortlived 1983 TV series Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince – but the important thing is that, if your dog is cute and doesn't compulsively attack people all the time, there's a small chance that you could be sitting on a small to medium-sized pile of money.

That is as long as your dog meets the set requirements, obviously. In an interview with NBC, Camp this week stated that the chosen Benji will have to possess an impressive set of attributes. "There are certain qualities that you look for in any movie star, whether it's a human or a dog," he said. "It's that charisma, it's that handsome quality, it's that sparkle in the eyes ... but at the end of the day it's love at first sight." Anything else is secondary to that.

Controversially, this even extends to breed. Indeed, the Facebook page goes as far as to state that all breeds of dogs are welcome to audition. One of the entries looks dangerously like a labrador. Imagine if Benji were a labrador. This could be James Bond going blond all over again. What would Benji loyalists make of a labrador Benji? Presuming there are any Benji loyalists, of course. There probably aren't.

Still, whichever dog wins the part, it will be interesting to see whether Benji still has what it takes to win over the public. When Lassie was revived for a film starring Peter O'Toole and Samantha Morton in 2005, it made only $6m (£4.9m) worldwide. Perhaps Benji – scruffier, perkier and more versatile than Lassie – can connect more strongly with audiences. Or perhaps it all depends on the human casting. We won't know who Benji's co-stars will be until Benji himself is cast but, as long as they are cute and don't compulsively attack people all the time, perhaps Benji has a shot after all.